I. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for rapidly cooking in heated water any dehydrated powdered food, particularly the West African staples yam fufu, garri fufu and rice fufu, each having varying degrees of thickness which require correspondingly varying schedules for heating, dispensing, rehydrating, and cooling.
II. Background Art
Fufu pounding machines and mashers have been around for years. The present invention is not a food processor for pounding or mashing cooked yams, cassava or any fufu precursor. The present invention is an automatic cooking machine and method of cooking dehydrated powdered food. Other nonanalogous background art teach several machines that automatically cook various foods as small as unpulverized rice and grains in heated water, but none disclose the cooking of dehydrated powdered foods like Western and Central African fufu, Eastern African Ugali, Southern African Sadza, Japanese mochi, and the like, attendant with the special structure, process and function required of such a machine to hydrate and cook food having such different textures and thicknesses.
Boiling cereal grains to prepare dumplings or porridges is a process older than baking bread, dating back to Neolithic times before the advent of agriculture. The Greeks made maza and sitos, and the Romans made puls. Even today such foods continue to be prepared throughout the world, such as oatmeal in Scotland, polenta in Italy, tsampa in Tibet and grits in the United States. The African porridge is fufu, and over one billion people throughout the world, or approximately twenty percent of the world's population including the United States, consume some form of fufu on a daily basis. Fufu and eba (garri) comprise approximately up to fifty percent of the entire Nigerian and West African diet. The United States has approximately up to one million Nigerians and tens of millions from other parts of Africa and Southeast Asia.
This centuries old necessity of diligently pounding boiled cassava, plantains, yams, cocoyams, rice, and the like from a raw state to a form ready for cooking and mashing, led in 1987 to a breakthrough invention by Edward Ofari, a food science researcher and native of Ghana. The invention is now commonly known as fufu flour, a dehydrated powdered food that is much more easy to prepare. However, even with this advance in food technology, many West Africans, including inhabitants of remote parts of Nigeria and Ghana, continue to employ the traditional manual methods of preparing fufu. In the United States, and in a notable few areas abroad, people use the dehydrated flour, but continue to suffer an elaborate, labor intensive effort to cook the flour on a daily basis.
DefinitionsTermDefinitionbanku -fufu-like staple of Western Africa, popular in Ghana,made from ground corn (maize). Sometimes combined withgrated cassava tuber.beef -Dehydrated powdered products from any food familyincluding beef, and the like, are each considered tobe a dehydrated powdered product.cassava -any of several plants (genus Manihot) of the spurgefamily grown in the tropics for their fleshy ediblerootstocks which yield a nutritious starch.carrot -a biennial herb (Daucus carota of the Umbelliferaefamily). Dehydrated powdered carrots, and the like,are considered to be a dehydrated powdered product.dehydratedThe terms “dehydrated powdered product” andpowdered“dehydrated powdered food” are equivalent and usedproduct -interchangeably herein. The product comprises any foodthat is both dehydrated and powdered including spices,poultry, seafood, and any of the various types of fufureferred to generically as fufu flour herein, dehydratedpowdered carrots, beef, potatoes, cassava yams, eba(garri), rice, including any type of fruits, vegetables,beans, seads, vegetables, meats, and any combinationthereof.eba -processed garrimochi -Japanese term for powdered or pounded ricefufu -processed cassava and used herein as a generic term foryams, cocoyams, garri, eba, plantains, mochi, and the like.Fufu flour therefore is a generic term that can be usedfor any and all dehydrated powdered foods either nowinvented or to be developed in the future including butnot limited to oatmeal from Scotland, polenta from Italy,tsampa from Tibet and grits from the United States.garri -fried powdered cassava flourkenkey -fufu-like staple of Western Africa, popular in Ghana,made from ground corn (maize)potato -an erect American herb (Solanum tuberosum) of thenightshade family cultivated as a vegetable crop.Instant mashed potatoes, and the like, areconsidered to be a dehydrated powdered product.Sadza -fufu made from ground corn (maize)Ugali -fufu made from ground corn (maize)yam -the edible starchy tuberous root of various plants(genus Dioscorea of the family Dioscoreaceae usedas a staple food in tropical areas.
Fufu, otherwise spelled fu fu, foo-foo, foofoo, foufou, foutou or foo foo, is usually cooked by dissolving the raw fufu flour in heated water in a pot over an open fire. Then the mixture is stirred continuously for an extended period of time, varying anywhere from ten minutes to an hour depending on serving size. For best results, two people are required to cook fufu flour, one to hold the pot while the other vigorously stirs with a strong implement such as a thick wooden spoon. The sticky, paste mixture becomes very thick and increasingly difficult to stir. The time, energy and work required to stir out all the lumps in the boiled fufu is noteworthy. Afterward the uniform mixture is sometimes dumped into a wet container and shaken for an extended period of time until it forms itself into a smooth ball. Garri is made by the same process as yam fufu and is indeed also referred to generically as “garri fufu”, but instead of immediate stirring in boiled water, it soaks for ten to thirty minutes in hot water depending on serving size.
Other Western African versions of fufu like banku and kenkey involve letting corn, or a cassava and corn mixture, ferment before cooking. The resulting liquid is placed in a pot and heated while stirring continuously with a large wooden spoon to keep lumps from forming as the liquid thickens. When the fufu is finally cooked, it becomes a sticky semi-solid, which is shaped into balls before serving as a starchy accompaniment for stews, soups or sauces.
There has been a long, deeply felt and unmet need, ever since the invention of fufu flour eighteen years ago, for an apparatus and method dedicated to the special cooking requirements of the various kinds of dehydrated powdered foods, particularly for yam, garri and rice fufu. Unlike dehydrated or instant mashed potato flakes, dehydrated powdered foods like fufu have thicker compositions and require longer and varying schedules for boiling, heating, hydrating and cooling.
The present invention resides in a new, useful and nonobvious combination of features combined to increase the efficiency of cooking all kinds of dehydrated powdered foods. Modern times call for improved food productivity, especially in parts of the world that desperately combat famine. With automation, the present invention can serve to increase the gross national product and therefore the productivity in countries that have large quantities of raw cassava and the like growing domestically, and whose populations rely on such foods for a large percentage of their diet. Because the time and energy usually spent preparing daily meals could be spent doing something more productive, the present invention can lead to higher living standards. Saving time and energy in basic necessities like the preparation of daily meals, even in the United States, can improve the lives of many.